My Room: Deven

Maya painted this incredible tree mural for her son's fabulous nursery. She shares more: The first criteria when creating this room was to create a calm yet sophisticated oasis that both my son and I could enjoy. I wanted it to be gender neutral since, at the time, we had no idea what the gender of our child would be. I chose an aqua blue that I thought could go either way.

The black and white accents add a sense of elegance, which caters more to my taste (I figured I'd be spending a lot of time in his room!), but I still wanted the room to be fun for Deven, so I picked up some bright colors throughout the room as well.

The theme started out as a woodland theme, thanks to a great pattern for the bird mobile that I found on the Spool Sewing website, but later the theme strayed because of the Warhol-esque zebra prints I picked up at the art college where I teach. I couldn't resist!

I wanted to accentuate the height of the walls, so I chose to do a mural of birch trees. The birds on the wire and in the trees were a spontaneous decision after the tress went up. The great prints above the crib were done by Berkley Illustration which I found on Etsy.

My favorite parts of the nursery are the little details where I got to use some creativity, like the bedding for instance. I came up with the design and found the fabric, but had Jessica from PLJdesign on Etsy create it for me. She did a fabulous job. The wooden characters were a Goodwill find - originally gingerbread men, which I painted over with the little men you see now. Deven's name on the wall - I did that with a little fabric and glue, and some ready made wooden letters. Finally, the change table box our carpenter made, but I had fun painting the stripes.

There were some challenges with the room - mainly the built-in counter, which is actually the top of the closet of the room below. The natural choice was to make this into the change station. I had our carpenter make a box for the change pad, and found some little baskets to put diapers and wipes etc., in. The other challenge was painting the mural! The wall are so high!

All in all it was fun to do. I'm a professional artist, and I'd say that this was probably the most fun and exciting project I've done! Hope you like it too!